Every Google update, every change you made, on the chart
Confirmed algorithm updates arrive by themselves, with history back to 2018. Your team adds the campaigns, deployments and outages. The AI reads all of it before it explains why a line moved.
Every plan, including the feeds.
Was it the update? The dates answer.
Google’s confirmed updates come from Google’s own announcements and Search Engine Land, checked daily, and sit on your chart as bands. A drop either lines up with one or it does not. Here it did not: the fall began nine days before the September spam update.
A real analysis of one of our own properties, a yacht brokerage, run on 16 Oct 2026. Brand and URLs changed; every number is the one that came back.
Two feeds in, every answer out
Annotations are notes attached to dates on a property. Some arrive from feeds, the rest from your team, and all of them end up in the same two places.
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Algorithm updates feed
Google announcements and Search Engine Land, checked daily, history to 2018
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Google Search Status feed
Crawling, indexing and ranking incidents, checked every six hours
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Your team
Campaigns, deployments, outages, content changes, in the app or from your AI client
Annotations on the property
Dated, categorised, shared or private, optionally scoped to a URL pattern. Archive what no longer applies.
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Overlaid on your charts
Dashboard traffic chart, with a GitHub events switch alongside
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Read before every time-based answer
The AI checks annotations first, in the built-in chat and through the connector
Each property chooses which feeds to show. A property that does not depend on organic search can switch the algorithm feed off.
Then account for every lost click
With the update ruled out, the same conversation reconciled the drop page by page against Search Console and GA4, and against the team’s own notes: a scraper blocked on 16 September, titles rewritten on the 26th.
- One line item was a redirect that should not exist: the thing to fix.
- Two were seasonal or brand demand, confirmed against the same weeks last year.
- The rest was spread across the long tail with no page losing more than ten.
The method, step by step: did the update hit you? and how to recover without making it worse.
Notes the AI can actually use
A good annotation says what changed and why it matters: “Checkout redesign launched: 4 steps to 2, removed the account requirement.” The fields keep it findable.
Category
Required. Every team starts with Marketing Campaign, Site Change, Content Update, Product Launch and Bug Fix; the team owner adds more with a name, icon and colour.
Single date or range
With a time. Use a range for a rollout that took days.
Shared or private
Private annotations are yours alone; shared ones are read by the whole team and the AI.
Affected page
One URL, a relative path or a wildcard such as /blog/*. Leave it blank for site-wide changes.
Archive and restore
Archiving removes an annotation from AI context but keeps the record. Restore it later, or delete it permanently from the Archived view.
Global categories
Algorithm Update and System Outage are reserved for the feeds, so your own notes never get mixed up with Google’s.
Annotate from where the work happens
The best moment to write the note is the moment you ship. With the connector added to Claude Code, Cursor or claude.ai, the AI that just helped you deploy can record it on the property before you have closed the terminal, in your name, visible to the team and on the chart.
Add an annotation to the harbour site: new pricing page live today, old /plans/ URL redirected.
Needs write permission on the property. How the connector works.
In step with GA4
Push any annotation to Google Analytics with one switch when you create it, so a team that also works in GA4 sees the same note. Pull GA4 annotations in the other way.
- GA4 keeps 150 characters and the date, not the time
- Deletions do not sync; GA4’s API does not support them
On the dashboard chart
Global annotations overlay the traffic chart with a toggle. With GitHub connected, a second switch adds commit and release markers, so a deployment and a dip sit on the same axis.
How far back the AI reads
The AI context history sets how much annotation history goes into an answer: 3 months on Free, 12 on Pro, unlimited on Business. The dates you can query are not limited; the feeds and your notes are kept regardless.
Annotations are also read and written through the connector for your own AI client, within the permission you hold on the property.
Questions
Can I see algorithm updates from before I signed up?
Yes. The algorithm feed includes confirmed Google updates back to 2018, so historical data already has its context in place the day you connect a property.
Does the AI read annotations automatically?
Yes. Every prompt preset tells the AI to check annotations before analysing time-based data, so you do not need to mention them. You can also ask directly, for example "check whether any algorithm update affected my traffic in December".
What is the AI context history on each plan?
How far back the AI includes your annotation history when it answers: 3 months on Free, 12 on Pro, unlimited on Business. It does not limit the dates you can query; any plan can ask about any period your connected platforms retain.
Do annotations sync to Google Analytics?
Optionally, one at a time. With GA4 connected, an "Also create in Google Analytics" switch pushes the annotation to GA4. GA4 keeps 150 characters and the date only, and deletions do not sync because the API does not support them. You can also pull GA4 annotations into AI Data Stream.
My property does not depend on organic search. Can I turn the feeds off?
Yes. Each property can show or hide global annotations and enable or disable individual feeds under Annotation Settings.
Can my own AI client add annotations?
Yes. Through the connector, Claude Code, Cursor, claude.ai or any MCP client can create and update custom annotations on properties where you have write permission, attributed to you and visible to your team in the app. Asking for one right after a deploy is the habit that keeps the chart honest.
Who can delete an annotation for good?
Deleting archives it. Only the annotation’s creator or someone with Admin permission on the property can delete it permanently from the Archived view, and an annotation that was also created in GA4 stays there.
Launch history
- Shipped Starter annotation categories for every team and permanent deletion
- Guide How to recover from a Google core update without making it worse
- Shipped Annotations readable and writable from your own AI client
- Guide Did the Google update affect your site? How to actually find out
- Guide Why GA4 doesn’t show you why traffic changed
- Shipped Annotations and context overlays launched
Page last updated .
Put the dates on your chart
Connect GA4 and Search Console and the algorithm history is already there. Add your first note, then ask why something changed.